“A day in the life” is an ongoing series that features the different roles within the MyDrive company.

This week I chatted with Kevin Bonney, one of our Project Managers (or Solution Delivery Managers-SDMs as we like to call them) to discuss his role within the MyDrive organisation.

Describe what you do on a day-to-day basis?

As a Project Manager, I’ve quickly learnt that my days would never be the same…ever! My job is about making sure everyone is keeping the end objective in sight. When I get to work, I usually go through all my emails. When the rest of the team gets in, we have stand-up. Stand-up allows us to understand the progress made the day before and see if there are any blockages and if so find ways to unblock those issues. At MyDrive, we use the Kanban-style project management system and work with LeanKit to visualise who’s working on what and share status updates.

As part of my job, I obviously spend a lot of time communicating with clients to make sure they know where we are and and we know what they’re doing. I have quite a few meetings during the day and work hand in hand with the product and engineering teams to plan for future developments.

I also have to make sure we’re as efficient as possible and that our clients’ requirements are understood by everyone.

How did you become a Project Manager and what attracted you to this job?

When I was at Uni, I worked as a care taker in a training development centre. One of my colleagues was a Project Manager and was creating a whole new suite of training tools for social services. He was telling me how his days were never the same and all the different things he did. I thought it was really cool and realised it was what I wanted to do. With a history degree, apart from being Indiana Jones there is not much else you can do. I asked my then boss what I needed to do to become a Project Manager and he said that he would create a job for me there to learn and that’s how I started.

What are the most challenging aspects of your job?

Everyone thinks they can do what we do. Obviously I can’t code or analyse data like our data scientists do but to be a good project manager you need to be a good communicator and know how to manage your time.

What are your favourite aspects of your job?

Every day is different. I like finding solutions that everyone likes and seeing projects go live.

What would you do if you weren’t a Project Manager?

I almost became an electrician. I have always loved sports and thought I could be a football agent.